How Janice Day Won | Page 2

tenet of "Do Something." In service she found continued joy. Janice loved Polktown, and almost everybody in Polktown loved her.
At least, everybody knew her, and when these young rascals trailing the drunken man spied the accusing countenance of Janice they fell back in confusion. She was thankful her cousin Marty was not one of them; yet several, she knew, belonged to the boys' club, the establishment of which had led to the opening of Polktown's library and free reading-room. However, the boys pursued Tim Narnay no farther. They slunk back into the lane, and finally, with shrill whoops and laughter, disappeared. The besotted man stood wavering on the curbstone, undecided, it seemed, upon his future course.
Janice would have passed on. The appearance of the fellow merely shocked and disgusted her. Her experience of drunkenness and with drinking people, had been very slight indeed. Gossip's tongue was busy with the fact that several weak or reckless men now hung about the Lake View Inn more than was good for them; and Janice saw herself that some boys had taken to loafing here. But nobody in whom she was vitally interested seemed in danger of acquiring the habit of using liquor just because Lem Parraday sold it.
The ladies of the sewing society of the Union Church missed "Marm" Parraday's brown face and vigorous tongue. It was said that she strongly disapproved of the change at the Inn, but Lem had overruled her for once.
"And, poor woman!" thought Janice now, "if she has to see such sights as this about the Inn, I don't wonder that she is ashamed."
The train of her thought was broken at the moment, and her footsteps stayed. Running across the street came a tiny girl, on whose bare head the Spring sunshine set a crown of gold. Such a wealth of tangled, golden hair Janice had never before seen, and the flowerlike face beneath it would have been very winsome indeed had it been clean.
She was a neglected-looking little creature; her patched clothing needed repatching, her face and hands were begrimed, and----
"Goodness only knows when there was ever a comb in that hair!" sighed Janice. "I would dearly love to clean her up and put something decent to wear upon her, and----"
She did not finish her wish because of an unexpected happening. The little girl came so blithely across the street only to run directly into the wavering figure of the intoxicated Jim Narnay. She screamed as Narnay seized her by one thin arm.
"What ye got there?" he demanded, hoarsely, trying to catch the other tiny, clenched fist.
"Oh! don't do it! don't do it!" begged the child, trying her best to slip away from his rough grasp.
"Ye got money, ye little sneak!" snarled the man, and he forced the girl's hand open with a quick wrench and seized the dime she held.
He flung her aside as though she had been a wisp of straw, and she would have fallen had not Janice caught her. Indignantly the older girl faced the drunken ruffian.
"You wicked man! How can you? Give her back that money at once! Why, you--you ought to be arrested!"
"Aw, g'wan!" growled the fellow. "It's my money."
He stumbled back into the lane again--without doubt making for the rear door of the Inn barroom from which he had just come. The child was sobbing.
"Wait!" exclaimed Janice, both eager and angry now. "Don't cry. I'll get your ten cents back. I'll go right in and tell Mr. Parraday and he'll make him give it up. At any rate he won't give him a drink for it."
The child caught Janice's skirt with one grimy hand. "Don't--don't do that, Miss," she said, soberly.
"Why not?"
"'Twon't do no good. Pop's all right when he's sober, and he'll be sorry for this. I oughter kep' my eyes open. Ma told me to. I could easy ha' dodged him if I'd been thinkin'. But--but that's all ma had in the house and she needed the meal."
"He--he is your father?" gasped Janice.
"Oh, yes. I'm Sophie Narnay. That's pop. And he's all right when he's sober," repeated the child.
Janice Day's indignation evaporated. Now she could feel only sympathy for the little creature that was forced to acknowledge such a man for a parent.
"Ma's goin' to be near 'bout distracted," Sophie pursued, shaking her tangled head. "That's the only dime she had."
"Never mind," gasped Janice, feeling the tears very near to the surface. "I'll let you have the dime you need. Is--is your papa always like that?"
"Oh, no! Oh, no! He works in the woods sometimes. But since the tavern's been open he's been drinkin' more. Ma says she hopes it'll burn down," added Sophie, with perfect seriousness.
Suddenly Janice felt that she could echo that desire herself. Ethically two wrongs do not make a right; but it is human